


confiteor deo omnipotenti

by lackadaisical



Series: Hellfire [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:04:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5513270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackadaisical/pseuds/lackadaisical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She assured Poe she could do this alone. She’d contact him when it was over.</p><p>When he was over: when Kylo Ren was dead.</p><p>She tried to assure herself, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	confiteor deo omnipotenti

Finn thought she was in love with Poe and she knew it killed him. She knew he aspired to be Poe, wanted more than anything to be him. It hurt to know she was just another thing Poe had that he didn’t. Hurt to know that, after everything, she would choose Poe over him.

And, Rey let him think it.

It was wrong— _so wrong_ —for her to drive a wedge between them, Finn and Poe, two brothers. But, she couldn’t consider the alternative; the truth would hurt more.

#

It was five months after she returned from Master Skywalker’s islands and Finn was barely talking to her. She could not speak to him, she could not explain.

How could she?

Why did she sigh heavily? Why did she stare longingly into the depths of galaxy—dreaming of someone she could never kiss, touch, hold in her arms?

She could not explain it to him and she allowed him to rage, guilt clawing at her. But, at least she recognized the guilt and it was a small victory: the Dark side didn’t know guilt. Yet, she never quieted her mantra: _It’s not the real_ him _. He isn’t influencing me._

It was still a lie, even after repeating it for a year and a half.

Yet, if something was repeated enough, it had to be true.

Sometimes, when she watched Finn working on the X-wings in the airfield, laughing at one of Poe’s jokes, or diligently attending the patients in the infirmary, she wished she could love him. She wished it could be Finn and not _him_. It would be so much easier, so much simpler.

Loving would be easy, the kisses free of a guilt, and the touches soft and lingering. It would be allowed. It would be correct.

But then she’d smell the richness of the earth twisting, spiraling, fermenting with a bitter, metallic cold. It would infect her like a drug, driving her to distraction, and she would be hot, her mind free of worry, and filled with inexcusable _rightness_.

No matter how she wished it, she had no love left to give Finn.

#

General Organa received word from a mole: Kylo Ren’s training was completed. He was leaving Sanctuary a Sith Lord; he had plunged into the clawing inferno of the Dark side, emerging its master.

Rey thought it ominous but fitting—perhaps purposeful symbolism—he was traveling to Mustafar alone, a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Darth Vader. He would rise from the ashes of his grandfather; he would rise from the ashes of Ben Solo.

It was the Resistance’s chance to strike.

Kylo Ren was never without his Stormtroopers. Kylo Ren was never exposed, never weak and Master Skywalker assured them she was ready. She could meet a Sith Lord in battle and triumph.

Yet, it wasn’t a Sith Lord she’d be facing.

General Organa ordered her to go, ordered Poe to accompany her, and she did not argue.

Finn did not see them off.

#

When the E-9 Explorer landed in Mustafar, Rey was overcome.

He was everywhere she looked, in every breath of air; he made her feel alive, every sense tingling with heightened perspective, every nerve wound tight in anxious anticipation. An euphoria, so dizzy and golden and confusing, spun her mind until she could only focus on the pressure of kisses on her neck—more real than ghostly—the hands clasping hers and the excited encouragement echoing through from a point no longer faraway; no longer a lifetime away, too far to stretch for and grasp in her hands, too far to not clutch close to her chest.

_You’re so close. Come to me._

Her ears were deaf to Poe asking her if she sensed Kylo in the Force, if she knew where to go.

There was no _if_ ; there was no _sensed_.

There was only a definitive; there was only complete understanding.

Her heart ached, her body ached, ecstatic with the thought of regaining a lost part of her. A phantom limb finally made real.

#

She assured Poe she could do this alone; she’d contact him when it was over.

When _he_ was over.

She tried to assure herself, too.

#

_Come to me._

His voice, no longer a whisper, no longer a reassurance, guided her.

_Come to me._

She forged a path through molten flows, sidestepping sulfur plumes. He showed her the way, protecting. His arms encircled her waist, coaxing her forward and to him.

_Come to me._

Her heart, her soul, her _all_ burned with the fires of the lava, with the hammering of her anticipation, and she could have collapsed, laughed, cried, _sang._ She felt his exploring mouth on every inch of her searing skin, hear him forming the words she needed to hear most, and taste his lips crushing against hers.

_Come to me._

Then she saw him.

In a shower of raining fire, a burst of molten water, he appeared dark and tall and without a helmet.

Her throat seized, her breath caught, her world stood still.

She was in perfect suspense and yet she managed to whisper: “You.”

A slow smile.

“You,” he agreed.


End file.
